New subject: Wikinews founder Erik Moeller resigns post on Board of Trustees

17 Dec 2007

I am honestly thinking of running but at the same time I'm kidding
myself.

On Dec 16, 2007 11:09 PM, Jason Safoutin <
jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.org
<mailto:jason.safoutin@wikinewsie.org>> wrote:

    from the foundation-l mailing list from Florence:

    Message: 6
    Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:01:27 +0100
    From: Florence Devouard <Anthere9@yahoo.com
    <mailto:Anthere9@yahoo.com>>
    Subject: [Foundation-l] [Announcement] update in board of trustees
           membership
    To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
    <mailto:foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
    Message-ID: <fk4oq5$ivd$1@ger.gmane.org
    <mailto:fk4oq5$ivd$1@ger.gmane.org>>
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

    Dear community,

    As chair of the board of trustees of Wikimedia Foundation, I
    would like
    to announce that Erik Moeller has decided to resign from the
    board two
    days ago. Erik decided to reorient his activities in other
    directions,
    and I hope we'll continue to be able to work together constructively
    from here on.

    A few days ago, Lodewijk pointed out to me that I forgot to announce
    clearly to this list that Michael Davis was no more board
    member, as
    planned at last october board meeting. As a reminder, Michael
    Davis had
    expressed the wish to move on and leave his seat for a while
    already. He
    officially quit the seat end of november. Michael has helped
    greatly in
    the first years of existence of the Foundation, so I hope you
    will have
    a thank you thought for him. You hardly ever heard of him, but
    he was
    really helpful a several critical moments in the life of the
    Foundation.

    The board is consequently now back at 5 members, Kat Welsh, Frieda
    Brioschi, Jan-Bart de Vreede, Jimmy Wales and myself.
    Michael seat is more or less reserved to our future treasurer,
    or if we
    can not find the treasurer as board member, at least to a
    skilled-financial oriented person.

    Erik's seat is open again. The board agreed to propose the seat to a
    community member, and agreed on a person. The person has been
    approached
    and has not given any answer yet. There is no real urgency anyway.
    The seat will be an appointed one, up for new elections in a few
    months.

    In a situation where we will welcome many more staff members not
    from
    the community, I think it is doubly important that the board
    membership
    be from the community. I will personally support an increase of the
    membership, with a focus on members coming from the community.
    I'd love
    as well having a seat or more being a representant from the
    chapters.
    Recently, there has been discussions over the limited professional
    skills of board members. At the same time, we are developing a staff
    mostly made of highly skilled professionals.

    I feel there are two paths for the future. Either we keep a
    board mostly
    made of community members (elected or appointed), who may not be
    top-notch professionals, who can do mistakes, such as forgetting
    to do a
    background check, such as not being able to do an audit in 1
    week, such
    as not signing the killer-deal with Google, but who can breath
    and pee
    wikimedia projects, dedicate their full energy to a project they
    love,
    without trying to put their own interest in front. A decentralized
    organization where chapters will have more room, authority and
    leadership.

    Or we get a board mostly made of big shots, famous, rich, or very
    skilled (all things potentially beneficial), but who just *do
    not get
    it*. A centralized organization, very powerful, but also very
    top-down.

    My heart leans toward the first position of course. But at the same
    time, I am aware we are now playing in the big room and current
    board
    members may not be of sufficient strength to resist the huge wave.

    I do not share the same optimism than Jimbo with regards to Knol. I
    think Knol is probably our biggest threat since the creation of
    Wikipedia. I really mean the biggest. Maybe not so much the project
    itself, but the competition it will create, the PR consequences,
    the
    financial tsunami, the confusion in people minds (free as in
    free speech
    or as in free of charge). Many parties are trying to influence
    us, to
    buy us, and conflicts of interest are becoming the rule rather
    than the
    exception. There are power struggles on the path.

    Rather than spending time bugging the board about whether we did a
    background check on Carolyn 18 months ago (we did not, period),
    I'd like
    the current community to realize that we are currently at a
    crossroad.
    The staff will hopefully stabilize and be successful under the
    leadership of Sue. I trust her to have this strength. But the
    organization in its whole is currently oscillating. We can try
    the path
    of the community, at the risk of being engulfed by the big ones.
    We can
    try the path of letting our future in the hands of the big
    shots, at the
    risk of loosing what is making us unique.

    Best

    Florence

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-- 
Autism is both a gift and a curse at the same time; But I think of
it as a gift.
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